Buzzfeed accused of violating journalistic ethics for publishing an unconfirmed "Trump file"

Фото: Depositphotos

Buzzfeed Publishing unverified "dossier" about the contacts of the elected President of the United States Donald Trump and his entourage with the Kremlin, as well as about the presence of incriminating evidence on the Kremlin caused a strong reaction in the United States.

Now not only the billionaire, but also a number of other publications blame Buzzfeed for violating journalistic ethics.

"Medusa”Laid out the situation around the consequences of this publication on the shelves.

Why it was not worth publishing?

The main problem with the Trump file is a complete lack of confirmation. The document was discussed for several months by both journalists and high-ranking politicians, but they did not take it seriously.

The most detailed on why Buzzfeed should not have been published unverified dossier, spoke The Atlantic journalist David Graham. According to him, it is extremely dangerous to present to the readers controversial, unconfirmed or deliberately unreliable facts and invite the audience to evaluate them on their own. As an example of what this might turn out to be, Graham cited the case of "PizzaGate" - a series of fake news stories about a supposedly existing pedophile network linked to the Democratic Party. In early December, an 2016-based resident of North Carolina arrived in Washington at a pizzeria, where, according to fake news, pedophiles met - and opened fire. When the man was detained, he explained that he wanted to figure things out for himself and evaluate the facts on his own.

“The job of a reporter is not to simply merge as much information as possible into public access. We need to collect information, sift it and determine what is reliable and what is not, ”said Graham.

Why published?

According to Buzzfeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith, the decision to publish the document was not easy for the editorial board, but it reflects the opinion of the publication on how journalism works in the 2017 year.

A letter from the editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, Ben Smith, to employees of the publication on the publication of the “dossier”.
Photo: Twitter

According to the editorial staff of Buzzfeed and those who are in solidarity with it, American society has the right to know which document all journalists and politicians in the country are discussing, and not for the first month. The moment of publication also matters: the journalists did not do it right after they got the dossier in their hands, but after the CNN report that the FBI had introduced the documents of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Buzzfeed does not directly formulate this, but it can be assumed that the publication has decided - since the intelligence services showed excerpts from the “file” to the elected and current presidents, then it cannot be hidden from citizens.

The publication of the dossier was favorably greeted surrounded by Hillary Clinton. A spokesman for her headquarters, Brian Fallon, for example, complained that many journalists knew about this document before the election, but did nothing.

Why is Trump offended by CNN?

During the January 11 press conference, Donald Trump spoke very sharply several times against Buzzfeed for publishing the unverified dossier and thanked other publications, including those who constantly criticize him, for a sound and professional approach to this situation.

However, his anger also spread to a CNN correspondent. Trump called the channel "disgusting organization" with "fake news", and after a long squabble, he did not allow the journalist to answer the accusations at a press conference and ask his question.

The CNN television channel after the press conference accused Trump spokesman Sean Spicer of distorting reality (he said that both Buzzfeed and CNN published the dossier) and categorically disassociated themselves from Buzzfeed, calling the decision of his editorial board "harmful and dangerous."

CNN claims that, unlike Buzzfeed, they acted strictly within the framework of journalistic ethics when they published news of the dossier, but did not indicate any details of it. In fact, many publications other than CNN have previously written more than once about a secret dossier that mentions the incriminating evidence allegedly held by the Russian special services on Trump - all of them, like the journalists of the TV channel, did not indicate details that could not be verified.

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